Inspire Bohemia at The Miami Flea: Cactus and Succulent Planters and Art

A while back Inspire Bohemia made its debut at one of Miami's most popular flea markets, The Miami Flea.  Held in the vibrant artist's community of Wynwood, The Miami Flea is a curated event with a variety of one-of-a-kind handmade crafts, art, and food truck vendors.  

Leading up to the event, I contemplated whether or not to include my paintings as part of my booth. At first I had only planned on selling my custom cactus and succulent planters, but ultimately I decided to take a leap of faith and produce some prints of my cactus watercolor paintings to sell alongside my home and garden planters.  In the end, I'm so glad I trusted my instincts and decided to sell my artwork because my paintings outsold my planters!  I was definitely thrilled, to say the least.

Preparing a booth for a flea market is a lot of work!  Arriving early and setting everything up, staging your products, and making sure everything is clearly priced is a real mission.  Overall, I had a lot of great help from my amazing business partner and husband-to-be, along with lots of family and friends.  Aside from the hectic setup process and broiling hot weather, I was pleasantly surprised with how smoothly my first Miami Flea market booth experience went. 

Staging was a lot of fun, in the months leading up to the big day I collected a few wood wine crates from my local wine store, and I borrowed a funky old vintage clothing rack made of metal pipes from my grandmother to display my hanging terrariums.  My biggest tip for creating a flea market booth is PREPARE PREPARE PREPARE!  My aunt helped me do a mock-up of the booth in my driveway the day before the actual flea market, so we could be sure of how we would arrange the tables and most of the planters, rather than leave it up to the last minute.  This was one of the best things I did to prepare!  Also, make sure you have a handy box full of pens, price tags, change, tangible receipts (if necessary for cash purchases), a calculator, and other necessities for your booth setup and transactions.  As far as payments go, I used to Square, Inc. to process most of my payments, and despite being intimidated by using the swiping mechanism and iphone app for the first time, it was a breeze!  

Another bit of advice for making your booth vibrant and welcoming?  A bright beautiful floral arrangement!  My aunt is a master when it comes to making gorgeous floral arrangements, and she does it using clippings from her very own garden...  I asked her to help me out and make me a vase of flowers for my table and she graced me with this beauty full of palm fronds, orchids, birds of paradise, Kalanchoe succulents and variety of random flowers:

Here are some shots of just a few of the cactus and succulent watercolor paintings I had for sale that day:

I've made quite a few new ones since that day, I plan to sell prints of the new ones at my next Miami Flea booth, (date to be announced soon):

I had a few funky modern Air Plant planters and terrariums in addition to my artwork and cactus and succulent planters, which ended up being in high demand:

Here are some of my hanging terrariums displayed on the old vintage clothing pipe rack:

I found some great ceramic cactus figurines at Ross and Goodwill which I used as decor to accentuate my planters, not to mention one of my favorite vibrant Suzani tapestries to draw in customers:

As you can see I love to plant cactus and succulents in a range of different containers - anything I can drill a hole in!  Coffee cups, cigar boxes, vases, anything goes....

Among the many planters I had for sale that day were the awesome handmade custom wood planters that my hubby makes... 

He hand cuts and stains the wood, assembling the pieces in various designs, even going so far as to torch the wood on some of them so as to accentuate the grain:


He makes a variety of these wood planters for sale, but also makes them to order per custom specifications.  We offer a range of sizes, wood types, stains and custom designs.

In the end, it's important to have a good time, network, and connect with customers...  Make sure to take note of what sells best so you can focus more on producing more of that for the next flea market.  In my case, my artwork was the star of the show, so I plan to showcase it more next time and refine my prints for future flea markets.  I want to thank everyone who helped me that day, and especially my talented partner in crime, I couldn't have done it without you!

Catherine

(All photographs in this post are taken by Inspire Bohemia and are protected under copyright, please do not reuse without written permission.)